Castles on Clouds
by Ace of Gallifrey
Summary: A fire at the Thenardier's inn alters the fate of their elder children; together they may change the course of a revolution. Charts the lives of the Thenardier siblings, and their friendship with the Amis, over a period of two years. Eventually E/E & M/C.
1. Prologue

**Title-** Castles on Clouds  
><strong>CharactersPairings-** Eponine/Enjolras (but expect it to take awhile), everybody else will be putting in the usual appearances  
><strong>Rating-<strong> T to be safe  
><strong>Summary-<strong> A fire at the Thenardier's inn alters the fate of their elder three children... and they just might change the course of a revolution. E/E and M/C.

**A/N-** Once again, this will be mostly musical-based. There will be some snatches of book stuff here and there, but like I've mentioned before, the last time I tried to read the novel, I was only nine and did not get far (it's on my to-do list, I promise, but do you know how much stuff I have to do, even in the summer?). Be advised that I will be blatantly altering established history, by the way, both fictional and real.

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><p><strong>Prologue: Incendiary<strong>

For anyone else, it would have been the smell of smoke that was the first clue. Eleven-year-old Eponine Thenardier, however, had grown accustomed to foul odors in recent years and the smell didn't even rouse her. No, what first alerted Eponine to the fact that something was very wrong was her sister's coughing.

Eponine felt Azelma's body spasm against hers due to the simple fact that they were huddled together by necessity for warmth. The inn their family owned had once been a fairly prosperous establishment. Unfortunately, word of a reputation like M. Thenardier's was liable to drive away customers, even the old regulars, and in recent years, the business had suffered. Rising prices from nearly every quarter had also adversely affected the little business's profits, and money had grown tight. M. Thenardier had taken up certain less-than-legal ventures in order to make ends meet, but his frequent absences only served to further the inn's financial suffering. The once-cosseted Eponine had been called upon to take the place of the serving-girl, who had been carried off some years earlier by a mysterious, wealthy gentleman who had, as far as Eponine understood it, paid for little Lark's freedom. The eldest three of the five Thenardier siblings had been turned out of their respective rooms in order to make extra space available.

This, then, was why Eponine, Azelma, and their very young brother Gavroche were lying together in a heap in the pantry, drawing what little warmth they could from the stove.

When Eponine woke to the sound of Azelma's labored breathing, it took her a good thirty seconds to work out what was going on. Once her mind connected the haze of smoke seeping into the room to her sister's coughing, however, all the drowsiness that had clouded her thoughts seemed to evaporate.

She shook Azelma's shoulder, rousing her from her uneasy slumber with relative ease. "'Zelma, I think there's a fire!" she shouted.

The smaller girl coughed again, more forcefully now that she was awake, and stared around with her striking blue eyes. "Fire?" she asked groggily.

"Yes!" Eponine exclaimed, jumping to her feet and pulling her sister up after her.

Beside them, five-year-old Gavroche sat up, rubbing at his eyes with grimy fists. "'Ponine?" he asked in his child's voice. "What's happening?"

Without wasting any more time, Eponine scooped her brother up in her arms. "Hold on tight to me," she said to him, as calmly as she was able. Gavroche wound his little arms around her neck, and she supported his weight on her right arm, reaching out her left to grab Azelma's hand. "Come on!" she said, pulling her sister after her out of the larder and in the direction of the door at the far end of the kitchen which would lead them out into the stable-yard.

Outside their little sleeping-place, the smoke was thicker, and made it difficult to see. She squinted as the smoke began to bother her eyes. For once, Eponine was grateful for her short stature, because were she any taller, it might have been impossible to navigate in the cloud of gray. She heard a crackling sound from above, and realized the fire was on the second floor. The part of her mind that wasn't busy alternating between panicking and working out a way to escape found time to wonder how it had started.

Eponine began to cough as she felt her way as quickly as she safely could around the large work-table in the middle of the room, still leading her sister by the hand.

"'Ponine, I can't see," Gavroche whined.

"Shhh, 'Vroche, we're almost to the door," she soothed him, and then they were out into the clear air behind the inn. Eponine coughed and, dropping Azelma's hand at last, wiped at her stinging eyes, ignoring the gasp of horror that came from her sister. The three children moved quickly to the opposite side of the yard. There, Eponine deposited Gavroche on the ground and at last turned to look at what had shocked Azelma.

The entire second story of the little inn was ablaze. Flames leapt from several windows and smoke poured from under the roof. Eponine looked around wildly. Though a few of the inn's pathetic handful of patrons stood about in the yard, watching the building burn, she could see no sign of her parents or her other siblings, the two infant boys too small to sleep with the elder three. "Maman!" she cried. "Papa!"

"They... they aren't here," Azelma said, voice a little raspy.

"Maman! Neville! Jacques!" Eponine shouted again, looking around, hoping that she'd missed them in the crowd that was beginning to gather in the yard. But they were not there. She turned to Azelma. "Stay with 'Vroche!" she commanded. Then she started running.

Desperately, she made for the building and though a woman reached out to try and prevent her from going inside, she was quicker by far and disappeared again into the smoke. She pulled the collar of her tatty nightgown up to cover her mouth and nose, and dab at the eyes that began streaming the moment she was inside. Even after so short a time, the smoke was already far thicker than it had been when she had left. She reached the stairs, intent on going up, but they were already beginning to burn near the top. But maybe, if she was quick...

She took the stairs two at a time, coughing as she did so. Before she could reach the top, though, a heavy beam engulfed in flames fell just in front of her, smashing the smoldering stairs and throwing up a shower of sparks and coals, some of which landed on Eponine's arms and chest. She screamed and stumbled backwards, slipping on the stairs and tumbling to the bottom, where she lay stunned. Her whole body vibrated with the force of the impact and she closed her eyes against the smoke, and the sparks that continued to rain down on her.

Then, unexpectedly, a pair of strong arms were around her, lifting her up. Eponine struggled to force her eyes open despite the noxious fumes all around them, to see who it was that had her. "M-Montparnasse?" she stuttered, amazed. The young man was an associate of her father's; what he was doing here at this hour was beyond her in her current state.

"I've got you, you little idiot," he said as he strode toward the door, supporting most of her weight for her. As they emerged again into the clear air, he shook her a little. "You're trying to get yourself killed?" he demanded. "You're damned lucky you fell the way you did or you'd have broken your neck! Are you alright?"

Eponine shrugged weakly. "I'm burned, but not bad. I've got to get back in!"

"No. You will stay right here." He deposited her next to Azelma, who was seated on the ground with tears streaming down her face, holding tight to a screaming Gavroche.

"But Maman!" Eponine protested. "Papa! The little ones! I have to- have to save-"

Montparnasse shook his head, silencing her. He glanced up at the flames now leaping from everywhere on the second story. She followed his gaze. Even though she didn't want to believe it, she could tell that the entire top half of the building was entirely ablaze.

"If they aren't already out, Eponine..." He sighed, shrugged, and patted her on the shoulder. "I must go and help. Some men are trying to put it out," he said, gesturing to a small group who had set up a highly ineffective bucket line. "Madame Leraux will be here shortly, I'm sure. She can look at your burns, Eponine." Montparnasse turned and strode away to join the impromptu fire brigade, leaving the three Thenardier children stunned in his wake.

"'Ponine?" Azelma asked in a voice choked with tears. "What did he mean 'If they aren't already out'? What did he mean, 'Ponine?"

Eponine knelt down in the dirt next to her siblings and put an arm around Azelma's shoulder, with little Gavroche sandwiched between them. "He meant it's bad, 'Zelma," she said quietly. Azelma let out a sob, and clung even tighter to Gavroche, who in turn buried his face in Eponine's soot-stained nightgown and wailed. Eponine herself felt tears stabbing at her eyes, though whether it was from the pain of the multitude of little burns on her arms or from the loss that didn't really seem real just yet, she wasn't sure.

"No," she whispered. Only, it wasn't a rejection of the simple facts Montparnasse had stated. She was young, but she had seen plenty of how the world worked and although grief was coming fast on the heels of shock, she understood that whatever came next would require strength. Gavroche was too young to be strong yet, and Azelma, though only one year her junior, was a much softer girl in so many ways than Eponine had ever really been. Eponine realized, as she stared up at the flames leaping high into the black sky despite all attempts to tame them, that she would have to be strong for them. She blinked fiercely, rejecting her instinct to cry.

Unless they were granted a miracle, Eponine was all the younger Thenardiers had anymore. No, she would not cry. Not tonight, not where they could see. No matter how much she wanted to curl up on the ground and weep as Gavroche was, she could not. She would look after them.


	2. 1: Four Years Later

**A/N- **When this chapter picks up, it is November of 1830. Just, y'know, so we're clear. I would hate to cause any confusion. And for some reason, Montparnasse is not being a tremendous ass... go figure! Eh, I've always had a soft spot for him, for some insane reason.

Also, you'll forgive me if I don't try to "write" accents. I always find that to be incredibly tacky unless done really well, and therefore should be left up to the masters of the art (Mark Twain or bust).

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><p><strong>1: Four Years Later<strong>

"Well now, what have we here? Bless me if it isn't Eponine Thenardier!" Montparnasse said, his raspy voice cutting through the rumble of voices that filled the cafe.

The young barmaid turned around to face him. The auburn hair she had inherited from her mother was bound up messily atop her head, with a few stray wisps escaping to curl about her face, giving her a frowsy, hassled appearance. In contrast to her flaming hair and pale skin, her dark brown eyes marked her undeniably as her father's daughter. Where her sleeves were pushed up past her elbows, he could see a few little round scars, reminders of the fire that had robbed her of parents. Her apron obviously did little to prevent or conceal the stains on her skirt, and Montparnasse would have bet any amount of money that she was entirely unaware of the dusting of flour across her left cheek. She had grown up nicely, he mused. Scrawny, certainly, and no great beauty by any mark, but she had a certain charm to her that appealed to him.

"I haven't got the time for you, 'Parnasse," she said, but the little smile that tugged at the corner of her mouth belied her harsh words.

"Come on now," he said, letting a grin spread across his own face in response. "Surely you have just a minute to spare to tell your dear old friend what you've been doing?" She let out a sigh, making a show of how much of a bother pausing to talk to him would be, but nevertheless eagerly leaned forward, resting her elbows on the countertop. She poured him a whiskey and pushed it across to him.

"Last I heard, you were living in Montreuil-sur-mer with your father's good-for-nothing sister," he drawled, looking deliberately at the far side of the room. Then his glance shot to Eponine's face, just catching the tail end of a grimace she thought she had concealed rather well.

She shrugged. "You heard right. _Tante_ Adilene was good enough to take us in after the fire. But I'm not staying there anymore, and neither is 'Zelma."

"Oh? Why ever not?" he asked, guessing he already knew the answer. Adilene Thenardier was well-known to him.

Eponine gave him a wry look. "I believe you're the one who described my aunt as good-for-nothing," she said. "Money she's got, but compassion hardly any. Soon as I was a bit older, I scratched right out of there quick as I could. Got myself a job, as you can plainly see-" She gestured to her ale-soaked apron. "-and as soon as I'd got enough saved, I took Azelma off her hands as well."

Montparnasse concealed his grin. Eponine Thenardier had been an independent little thing as long as he'd known her. Even as a small child, she'd done things her own way or not at all. This turn of events since last he'd seen her was hardly a surprise. "And how is little Azelma?" he asked pleasantly.

"Not so little anymore," she replied with a fond smile. "She just turned fifteen last week."

"And your brother?"

Eponine made a valiant effort at maintaining her smile, and very nearly succeeded, but a little tightness around her eyes betrayed her. "Gavroche is fine, or so I've been given to understand. He's still with Adilene."

"And I imagine that's not much to his taste?"

"Not even a little," she said with a little smirk. "He is a holy terror when he wants to be, and he and our aunt are constantly at odds. But she has him in school, learning sums and things, which is better than he likely would get if I tried to manage him. Maybe someday..." She sighed, eyes faraway. "Is it wrong to want us all to be together, even if it's not really what's best for him?" she asked, almost rhetorically.

Montparnasse shook his head. "Losing your parents and the little ones was hard on all three of you."

"That was a long time ago, 'Parnasse," she said firmly, and apparently that closed this particular discussion, because she continued on to say, "And what about you? How are you faring?"

"Well enough," he said. "You know me, always busy."

"Any of it legal?" she asked shrewdly.

"Some of it," he said airily.

She smirked. "Well, it's a better answer than the last I heard of you," she said.

At that moment, Roxanne Lefroy, the proprietress of the Cafe Musain, bustled out from the back of her establishment and upon seeing Eponine deep in conversation instead of convincing the rest of her patrons to consume still more of her rather excellent brew, proceeded to whack her sharply upside the head with the flat of her hand. "Hop to it, Thenardier!" she barked sharply.

Eponine gave Montparnasse a wry look before turning away. "More wine, gentlemen?" she cried jovially, raising a chorus of "Ayes!" from all over the room.

"I was having a rather nice conversation," Montparnasse told Mlle. Lefroy ruefully, before tossing a coin her way in payment for the whiskey he'd been nursing all this while. Before he exited the establishment into the gathering dark outside, he caught a glimpse of Eponine weaving through the crowd, full bottles in her hands and wearing a saucy smile on her lips that was belied by the dark circles beneath her eyes. She nodded in his direction. He shook his head in some amusement before disappearing into the night.

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><p>It was long past midnight when Eponine arrived home, and her feet were aching. That wasn't anything particularly new, but no matter how used to it one got, that did not alter the simple fact of it. As she pushed open the door of her tiny apartments on the Rue de la Huchette, she took note of the unexpected light that met her eyes.<p>

"You ought to be sleeping, 'Zelma," she said before she'd even laid eyes on her sister.

"I wanted to wait for you," Azelma said. Eponine sighed, closed and bolted the door behind her, and turned to look at Azelma.

The younger Thenardier girl was seated on the low cot that passed for a bed, a basket at her feet and a few sheets of pink-stained paper in her hands. The two were plainly sisters- their matching button noses and deep-set eyes declared that- but it was obvious who the great beauty of the family was. Eponine's features were unremarkable, neither unattractive nor beautiful. She had the sort of face one simply forgot about, and were it not for her striking red hair, few would recall ever seeing her. Azelma, by contrast, was delicate and lovely. She had inherited their mother's deep green eyes, and her dark hair fell in waves down her back. Though she was freckled from too much time in the sun, she had the better figure by far. Eponine had made sure of that; even when money was tight, she ensured that her sister would never go hungry, even if that meant going without herself.

"I don't need you waiting around for me," Eponine said snappishly. "You'll make yourself sick if you start skipping sleep."

"Like you do?"

"_I_ have things to do," Eponine pointed out.

Azelma rolled her eyes. "As if I didn't," she responded.

Eponine sighed. In the last few months, Azelma had taken to twisting and selling paper roses. While she was grateful for the extra income, her little sister's habits worried her. "I wish you wouldn't, 'Zelma. Standing out on the street all day... things happen, you know. Believe me, I've been there."

"I'm not even a year younger than you," Azelma pointed out hotly. "And I'm not made of porcelain, 'Ponine! You're not the only one who can take care of herself!" Her expression softened and she offered a teasing smile as a peace offering. "We're Thenardiers, remember? We're made of sterner stuff than that."

Eponine shook her head. "I know that, 'Zelma. I just..." She sighed. "I just want to give you a better life. Find you a nice husband who'll look after you."

Azelma giggled. "You'll be married ages before I ever find a man!"

Eponine laughed bitterly and sat down beside her sister, reaching over into her pile of papers and beginning to twist them around the metal stems. If they were going to waste candle wax, twisting roses, they might as well make the most of it. "Hardly," she said, as lightly as she could. "I doubt anybody'd want the likes of me. Besides, just _look_ at you! Mark my words, 'Zelma, any day now some charming lad will come and take a fancy to you and he'll sweep you off your feet and then you'll be out of here!"

_And then it will all have been worth it_, she thought to herself. Azelma was smiling softly to herself, no doubt lost in a daydream, and Eponine took the opportunity to sourly reflect on herself. Azelma, she was sure, _would_ find herself a good man. She was beautiful and sweet and charming, just intelligent enough to be appealing without making a potential husband feel threatened. Someday she would snare the attention of a grocer or a printer, someone who would be able to support her.

As for herself, however... well, she had long ago accepted that she had been created to save her siblings. She wasn't meant for romance or a fine life. Her destiny was of a plainer sort, much like her appearance. No man wanted a girl like her, especially a girl like her who came weighed down with the support of two younger siblings.

For some twenty minutes the pair of them sat there on the cot and twisted paper flowers, until the single candle was nearly spent. Azelma looked up at the little light and, as if suddenly startled, jumped to her feet. "Oh!" she exclaimed. "Oh, I nearly forgot! There's a letter from _Tante_ Adilene!" She went to the table and picked up an envelope which she showed to her sister.

Eponine dropped the last paper rose in the basket. "Leave it," she said, stretching her cramped muscles. "I'll read it tomorrow."

She pulled off her stained dress and exchanged it for her nightgown, observing as she did so that there was a growing tear down the seam of the latter garment and making a mental note to stitch it up the next day. She retrieved her heavy (and very much stolen) man's coat from where it lay over the back of the chair, and went to curl up next to Azelma on the cot. Within minutes, sleep was upon her.


	3. 2: The Back Room

**A/N-** Allow me to say right now, just in case anyone was worrying, that you need not fear an OOC Enjolras in this story. None of the swoony nonsense that happens in too many E/E fics! I intend to write him as his usual pragmatic self, complete with blind devotion to his cause, and getting this E/E thing underway is going to be a long and annoying ride for everyone. Well, annoying for les Amis. Entertaining for myself, and hopefully for you guys, if I do my job right!

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><p><strong>2: The Back Room<strong>

The morning dawned bright and chill, and Eponine restrained a groan of displeasure. The Thenardier sisters little flat had a stove, but Eponine hadn't had the money to buy more fuel than the absolute minimum that they needed for cooking in months, and as a result, the place was freezing when the bitter November air seeped in between the shutters. Eponine wanted nothing more than to stay right there in the bed, close to her sister's warmth, but the angle of the frigid sunlight against the floorboards told her plainly that she would be expected at the cafe in just an hour.

She rose from her place, tugging the lapels of the oversized coat closer to her small frame in a vain effort to keep out the chill. She crossed the room to the little hutch where the sisters kept their clothing and pulled out her second work-dress, the one she'd worn yesterday being far too stained to even consider. Roxanne ran a tight establishment, and had told Eponine the day she'd hired her that she expected her help to keep a tidy look about them. Eponine supposed she'd have to do some washing when she returned home that evening.

Once dressed, Eponine bound up her hair and plucked her key from its place on the table. As she did so, she saw the envelope from Adilene still sitting there. Briefly she debated reading it now, but she was short of time and elected to put it off until evening. She chose to forgo any semblance of breakfast; she'd be able to pilfer something from the kitchen later. On her way out the door, she passed Azelma's basket of paper flowers.

It was even colder outside than it had been in the little two-room apartment, and Eponine was grateful for the gray cap she'd pulled down low to cover as much of her ears as she could manage. The Cafe Musain was a good half a mile from her flat on the Rue de la Huchette, and as the weather turned ever colder that half mile began to feel longer and longer each day.

Eponine's nose and the tips of her fingers, poking out of her worn gloves, were numb by the time she stepped into the blessed warmth of the cafe.

Roxanne was elbow-deep in dough when Eponine entered the kitchen. She was a pretty, heavyset woman with a thick rope of dark blonde hair that was going gray around the temples. Her dark eyes, beset at the corners with fine lines, sat close together in her round face, giving her a sharp, focused look. Until her husband's untimely death a few years prior, the pair of them had run the cafe together, and Roxanne had successfully kept up the business on her own. She was a shrewd, calculating woman who reminded Eponine just a bit of her father, though unlike Old Thenardier, Eponine suspected that Roxanne had a good heart underneath her harsh exterior.

"And what time do you call this?" Roxanne barked the moment Eponine entered the room.

"Same time as I get here everyday," Eponine replied in a voice they both knew was too sweet to be sincere. "And earlier than most of the rest of the layabouts you keep hiring. Speaking of, where's Gérard?" she asked, naming the young man who ran the kitchen while Roxanne was occupied elsewhere in the establishment.

"Ill," Roxanne replied sourly. "The little slug sent his _sister_ to tell me he's not likely to be about for a day or two! Ought to just fire him, I should..."

Eponine deftly tied her apron about her waist. "Whatever you say, Roxanne," she responded automatically, knowing full well that the older woman would do no such thing. Gérard was in a situation very similar to Eponine's own, supporting his younger siblings on slim wages. Roxanne also knew this, she was sure.

"I'm expecting we'll have a full house tonight," Roxanne said. "So I want you to tidy up the back room now, 'fore we get too busy."

Eponine nodded and scurried out of the kitchen and down the twisty hallway that led from the commons back to the more secluded room at the rear of the building. According to Roxanne, it had once been the spillover room, for when the cafe had more customers than could fit in the common room alone. Times were hard though, business was down, and it hadn't been put to its allotted function for a long time.

It did, however, have other uses. Over the past year or so, four nights a week, a group of around twenty young men gathered in the little parlor. From what Eponine had seen of them, they were all frequent patrons of the cafe in little groups of two and three on any given day, but every Monday, Wednesday, Friday and Saturday the entire collection found their way to that back room.

Eponine was not a fool, and she could guess who they were: Republicans. Students, in the main, who talked of rebellion behind closed doors. The same thing happened in many little cafes and other establishments all across the city, if talk on the street was to be believed.

The thought gave Eponine a shiver up the back. She didn't know what it was they talked about back here, and she wasn't entirely sure she wanted to. Revolution was a scary word. It meant change and upheaval and a world she didn't understand and couldn't predict. Maybe they meant well, maybe they didn't. Either way, she had made it her habit to let one of Roxanne's other hired hands deal with the men who gathered in the back room. She wanted no association with these young men who carried the threat of revolution in their wake.

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><p>"Another bottle!" came the cry from the table beside the fire. Eponine rolled her eyes. The group in question consisted of four soldiers and a pretty young grisette for each. The officers were chatting convivially (and increasingly loudly) with each other, and absentmindedly fondling the women hanging about them. Though it was still early in the evening, she had already pegged the group as likely candidates for unceremonious removal from the cafe once they'd gotten a few more bottles of wine inside them.<p>

She brought them the bottle they were demanding, and was moving to return to the kitchen when she caught sight of an impossibly familiar dark head bobbing through the crowd at waist height not three feet from where she stood.

"'Vroche?" she whispered, rooted momentarily to the floor. "'Vroche!" she repeated, more loudly.

The boy turned at the sound, and sure enough it was Gavroche, dark eyes the mirror of Eponine's own widening in surprise to see her there. "What on earth are you doing in Paris?" she demanded. Before she could move an inch, he turned again and was sprinting away from her.

"Get back here!" Eponine cried, giving chase.

She had longer legs by far, but Gavroche could squeeze through the tiniest gaps in the crowd and he evaded her grasping hand easily. He moved like a bird dog, taking the most direct route to the door at the back of the commons and slipping into the hallway. Eponine almost caught up with him there, but he was once again too quick for her and she tailed him down the narrow hall.

"Come back you little sneak!" she cried. "What the hell d'you think you're doing?"

Gavroche dove through the door at the end of the hall and slammed it to behind him. Eponine crashed into the door. She tried to push it open but it was apparent that someone was holding it closed on the other side.

"Open up, you rascal!" she called, pounding repeatedly on the wood with her fist.

"No!" came her brother's boyish voice from the other side.

She kicked the door in frustration. "What are you playing at? Let me in!"

"I won't!" his yelled back stubbornly.

"I'm warning you, Gavroche, when I get in there-!" She backed up as far as the limited space in the hallway allowed and made a run at the door, hoping to push her way in through brute force.

Abruptly, the door opened, at the exact moment that Eponine came into contact with it. Not meeting with the resistance she had expected, Eponine's momentum carried her right into the room. She tumbled off her feet and landed in a heap on the floor in an inelegant pile of skirts. "Damn it 'Vroche," she groaned. "What kind of cheap trick was that?"

Eponine sat up... and found herself face-to-face with around twenty young men, all of whom were dead silent, staring at her.

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><p><strong>AN-** Yeah... that wasn't arbitrary _at all_... *sarcasm hand raised* To be fair, though, do we ever meet important people in our lives in a non-embarrassing way? The stories I could tell you about how I met all my oldest friends... oh god, the horror! (Newly waxed stairs are a menace, among other things...)

Reviews are always appreciated!


	4. 3: Les Amis de l'ABC

**A/N-**Yay! Y'all reviewed! That makes me exceedingly happy, you know... And just so we're clear from the get-go here, Enjolras is leaning towards Enjolras _a la_ Hugo. Writing him as Raminjolras would interfere with my objectivity. Therefore, I'm attempting to find a balance halfway between musical!Enjolras and book!Enjolras (I will probably fail at this). And for some reason, Grantaire is having a great deal of fun with this (as if we expected anything else from him...)

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><p><strong>3: Les Amis de l'ABC<strong>

Eponine felt her face flush, certain her skin must be approaching the same color as her hair. She awkwardly attempted to rise to her feet, with only moderate success. Her skirts had somehow gotten tangled up and as she struggled to rise, mumbling an awkward apology to the group of young men who continued to watch her, she only succeeded in tripping herself again.

A hand caught hers and prevented her from crashing back to the floor.

Eponine looked up into the face of her rescuer and found herself face to face with a handsome young man a few years her senior. He had a friendly, open face, set with green eyes and a guileless smile. His chestnut hair fell in his face as he helped her to her feet.

"Thank you," she said, thoroughly embarrassed.

"My pleasure, mademoiselle," he said, gallantly kissing the knuckles of the hand which he still held in his own, as if she were some sort of lady instead of a barmaid. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Jean Prouvaire. And may I ask your name in return?"

Bewildered, Eponine hesitated a moment, in which interval one of the others- a tall man in possession of a terribly unfortunate visage- muttered, "Quit flirting, Jehan!"

The young man turned pink and released her hand immediately. "I-I suppose I ought to ask what, exactly, you're doing bursting through the door on us like that," he adjusted, before shooting an indecipherable glance at the man who had spoken.

She straightened her spine and summoned up every ounce of brass she had in her. "My name is Eponine Thenardier," she said proudly. "As you may or may not know, I work here, and am therefore free to burst through any door I choose. As for why I chose this _particular_ door... Well, perhaps Gavroche can explain better than I can."

The boy in question was standing behind the second man who had spoken, peering out at Eponine from behind him and trying to disguise his smirk.

"Well?" the man Gavroche was using as a shield said. "Tell us a tale, won't you, little Gavroche? What's been going on?"

"She chased me," Gavroche said, sticking out his lower lip in an obvious ruse to garner sympathy. It worked well enough, because the others in the room drew a little closer to him protectively. It was subtle, and probably unconscious on the parts of almost all of them, but Eponine noticed all the same. Her little brother had always been able to easily charm anyone and everyone (their aunt being the only possible exception).

Eponine rolled her eyes. "I chased you because you ran, you dolt!" she exclaimed. "May I ask you all how you've come to know my brother?"

"Your brother?" Prouvaire asked, amazed. "This little gamin is your brother?"

Eponine shot the boy a glare. "Yes. He is. And he is _supposed_ to be in Montreuil-sur-mer at the moment," she said pointedly. "What on earth are you doing in Paris, 'Vroche?"

The obvious flaw in his little game had been called up, and Gavroche shuffled his feet (though he still managed a cheeky little grin). "I got sick of it there, so I came here," he said.

"When?" Eponine asked.

Gavroche remained silent.

"He began following Grantaire to our meetings about three months ago now," Prouvaire said helpfully.

"Three-?" Eponine gasped. "Gavroche you little-! I-I don't... Oh dear lord, boy, what am I going to do with you?" She felt utterly lost for words. She wasn't sure if she was more furious or glad to see him at the moment.

The tall man looked down at the boy who was still trying to hide unsuccessfully behind him. "That right, little Gavroche?" he asked. "Is she your sister?"

Gavroche made a most excellent show of feigning shame as he nodded and stared at his feet, but Eponine could see the twinkle in his eye. One way or another, her little brother thought he had played a most excellent trick. She despaired once again of ever making him into anything resembling mannerly.

"Well then, any sister of Gavroche's is a friend of ours!" the man said magnanimously. "Allow me to introduce myself. I am Remi Grantaire, and these-" He made a grandiose gesture at the odd collection of young men around them. "-Are my compatriots in the literary society known as Les Amis de l'ABC."

Eponine could not hold back a snort. "Literary society?" she said before she could stop herself. "Is _that_ what you're calling it? Well, I suppose that's enough to dupe the gendarmerie, but anybody who's actually paying attention knows what you're really doing here."

She regretted the words almost instantly, as the tension in the room rose noticeably. She wondered if they were really naive enough to think that all their treasonous talk was actually kept within the walls of this little room, that the only people who discovered these little clubs were the chosen ones they themselves informed. Judging by the looks of surprise on nearly every face, it appeared so.

From the back of the room, though, emerged one face that was very much _not_ surprised. A man she had not seen before moved to stand next to Grantaire, and Eponine's breath caught in her throat. The man now looking at her was the most impossibly good-looking man she had ever seen. She thought he must be young, for he did not look all that much older than she was. He was tall, though not as tall as Grantaire, with fine golden hair and vividly blue eyes. Eponine thought wildly that he must surely be an angel, and an angry one at that to be casting such a dangerous look at her.

"And what is your stance on, as you say, 'what we're really doing here'?" he asked in a voice that, though warm and melodious in tone, managed to make her shiver a little. Eponine was left in no doubt that she was face-to-face with a formidable- possibly even dangerous- individual. Instincts born of many years of hard knocks made her tense up under the steely stare he had fixed her with.

But for all that this newcomer made her want to run and hide, Eponine was not in the habit of showing fear. She raised her chin to look up at him. "My opinion, monsieur? Well, I won't stop you, and I certainly won't report you to the police if that's what you're worried about, but I want no part in such things."

"You ought to," he said coldly. "It is the well-being of people like you that we are primarily concerned with."

If you were to ask Eponine later, she would have conceded that he had a point. She would also have admitted that he was right in his generalizations; she _was_ a working girl and she _did_ come from a questionable family. But right at that moment, when the haughty words left his mouth, she was too insulted to be quite that rational, let alone notice that, though most of the young men had turned their attention away from her to converse quietly among themselves, suddenly every eye in the room was on her once more.

"People like me?" she asked, in a tone that, though she did not know it, rivaled his for sheer frigidity. "Just what do you mean by that? Poor? Uneducated?"

"I mean no offense," he said, and she was only mildly placated by the fact that his tone was quite sincere.

"I'm sure you don't. But for all your talk of equality, or whatever else it is you Republicans talk about, you obviously don't know much about "people like me" if you think that kind of persuasion's the way to gain a following!"

The blonde man's face flushed in anger, and he opened his mouth, but Grantaire intervened. He threw an arm around the younger man's shoulders jovially and said, "Pay no attention to our resident orator, Mademoiselle Thenardier. Enjolras is a decent chap, he really is, but terribly outspoken when it comes to these funny ideas he gets in his head sometimes." His tone was light, and anyone could see he was teasing his friend more than he was really addressing Eponine.

The man called Enjolras shot Grantaire a look that seemed caught halfway between amusement and annoyance, and shrugged off his arm.

Grantaire hardly took notice. "Come then, Sister of Gavroche!" he said, grinning broadly. "Leave Antoine here to his foolhardy dreams and allow me to introduce you to the rest of these good gentlemen here!"

Eponine decided right then and there that she liked Grantaire. Despite his mis-arranged features and the alcohol she could smell on him as he moved to stand at her side, he seemed- based solely on first impressions- to have an exceptional gift for dispelling tension, and when he smiled as he was smiling now, one forgot about his face because he was, in fact, rather charming.

The next few minutes were a whirlwind of names and faces as Grantaire and a very excitable Gavroche proceeded to make her known to each and every one of the students that populated the meeting. Eponine was initially embarrassed, as she realized that they had all been quietly observing her less-than-elegant first impression, but she quickly forgot her mortification as she worked to commit the array of names and faces to detailed memory, as had her habit since childhood. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to plant them firmly in her mind because she wanted to avoid them or if, disregarding her desire to stay out of the whole mess, it was because she couldn't help but like this unexpected collection of students in spite of the threat they represented. She knew Roxanne would be irritated at her for lingering, but she couldn't find a polite excuse to leave quite so abruptly.

In addition to Prouvaire, Grantaire, and the disagreeable Enjolras, there was Bossuet, a smiling man with a face far too young for the shiny hairless crown of his head, and Matthieu Courfeyrac, who initially struck her as being somewhat magnetic, with his infectious smile and boisterous attitudes. There was Christophe Bahorel, a grumbling, dark-haired man with broad shoulders who said more in the two minutes she conversed with him than most of the rest did put together, and Alexandre Joly, a fresh-faced young man who managed to be both pleasant and bizarrely intense at the same time.

She encountered Phillippe, the quiet boy nearly her own age who mumbled an introduction, turned bright red, and quickly engaged Bossuet in conversation, Alain Paillard, who had hair even redder than her own who spoke softly and was of serious countenance, and a handful of others.

"You would have met Combeferre," Grantaire said once he'd given her a complete tour of his comrades, "But he's gone back home to Nice for a time. I'm sure you'll see him sooner or later, though."

Eponine suddenly wondered just what on earth she had gotten herself into- or, more accurately, what Gavroche had gotten her into. "No, I-" she began, unsure of what exactly she could say to explain the reluctance she ought to have expressed plainly several minutes ago.

Before she could speak, however, a shout echoed down the hall from the main room. Eponine sighed. "That'll be the soldiers. _Knew_ they'd be trouble," she said ruefully, throwing a distracted look over her shoulder. She took a few steps toward the door, grateful for the excuse to get out of there and away from all their staring eyes. "I should probably go throw them out before they make a mess. Come on, Gavroche."

"Can't I stay?" he pleaded, pulling at her skirt.

Eponine hesitated. Roxanne would be annoyed to have him underfoot in the kitchen... but she couldn't leave him here!

"We certainly wouldn't mind," Prouvaire said helpfully.

"They talk about such interesting things!" Gavroche protested.

_Oh good Lord_... Eponine groaned internally. Just what she needed, Gavroche getting himself attached. But there wasn't much she could do about it now, and the increasing volume of the yelling echoing back from the commons left her no option. "Alright," she sighed. "But we're having a good long talk later! You have a lot of explaining to do!"

She nodded politely in the general direction of the students and fled the room. Drunken soldiers were far easier to deal with, in her opinion.

.

After the abrupt exit of Mlle. Thenardier, Enjolras, who had retreated to a far table while Grantaire introduced the young woman to the rest of the group, moved once more to the center of the room and tried to resume the discussion they'd been having before first Gavroche and then Eponine burst into the room. For the most part, the other students readily joined in. Only Bossuet and Grantaire still lingered a moment.

"I think I like your sister," Grantaire said roundly to Gavroche.

"You like all women," Bossuet pointed out.

Grantaire shrugged and waved a hand airily, as if to say _So?_ "Still," he pointed out, "It's been awhile since anybody went after Enjolras like that. It's easy to see where Little Gavroche learned his mouth from." He ruffled the little would-be gamin's hair, which caused Gavroche to squirm away, determinedly pushing his dark strands back into place and making a sour face at Grantaire, all of which only served to make the two young men laugh.

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><p><strong>AN-** Not my best, I must say, but after a huge amount of tweaking I just couldn't find a way to get it any better, so you'll have to live with this. As always, I love getting feedback...


	5. 4: A Slippery Character

**A/N-** Wow, sorry guys! I've been away from this story for almost a month! Trust me though, it was worth it. I read Les Miserables and let me tell you, while the musical is the best adaptation that could've possibly been done, the book is INFINITELY better. Anyway, I started an Eponine-centric story (the first in a trilogy) over under the book fandom, entitled _La floraison de la Rose_. You should all go read it, even those who haven't read the book yet (mainly because I'm a review-slut *wink*). Anyway, this chapter was another one that was a total devil to write, and that's part of why I was so much delayed in posting it- I poked and prodded at it for awhile, then wrote the last 800 words or so at three in the morning and gave up on improving it. (Yeah, I put sooooo much effort into my fanfiction...)

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><p><strong>4. A Slippery Character<strong>

Forcibly ejecting the quartet of soldiers did not prove as taxing as Eponine had feared. One of them had broken a stool in a drunken argument, and had put up something of a fuss about being turned out, but she had succeeded in chasing him out with some assistance from a fiery-eyed Roxanne. The other three had been more than happy to follow their swearing comrade into the night. The ladies that had been so attentive to them earlier in the evening immediately switched their attentions to other men, which caused Eponine to roll her eyes. How working girls managed to find the time to chase man after man completely baffled her. She certainly had no time or patience for it!

The rest of the night passed with relative normalcy. At some point late in the evening, just before the time Roxanne ordinarily closed her establishment, the majority of les Amis de l'ABC trooped out of the back room. A few of them nodded to her. Eponine gave a vague wave of her hand and ducked her head in embarrassment.

"Why do you let those rabble-rousers meet here?" she complained to Roxanne.

The sharp woman raised an eyebrow. "Those "rabble-rousers" are _right_," she said curtly. "Despite what you seem to think, I'm not that thick; I know what they're about."

"All they're going to do is cause trouble," Eponine muttered.

"My husband would have liked them," she responded in a positively icy tone.

Eponine knew better than to contradict a word she said once her husband had been invoked, if she valued her job at all. She quietly went back to wiping spilled wine from the tables.

Some fifteen minutes later, Roxanne shouted down the long hallway, "Alright, you lot! I'm closed up! Get out unless you intend to sleep here!"

The door to the back room opened and the last handful of occupants emerged. The handsome Enjolras exited first with a scowl on his face. Grantaire, beaming smugly, followed close behind him. As they passed through the common room on their way to the door, Eponine glanced up and happened to catch Enjolras's eye. Immediately, the irritation he had provoked in her earlier reemerged, and though she did not know it, showed plainly on her face. His scowl turned even colder in reply, and he quickened his pace.

Eponine did not have time to dwell on thoughts of the prideful young man, as she spotted a third pair of very short legs creeping along on the opposite side of Grantaire from her, apparently quite content in their belief of invisibility.

"Oh no you don't!" she exclaimed, and before Gavroche could get away, she darted around Grantaire to seize him sharply by the ear.

"Ow! Ow! Get off!" he cried.

"Trying to sneak out, were you?" she asked rhetorically. "Thinking you'd get out of trouble by taking to the streets again? I think not!"

Grantaire laughed. "He's a slippery one, your brother," he said. "Don't be too rough with him, Mademoiselle."

"We shall see," said Eponine evasively. "And as for you, I would appreciate it if you would keep my brother _out_ of trouble, rather than helping him get _into_ it."

"Whatever do you mean?" Grantaire asked innocently.

Eponine glared at him. "I know you were in on his little plan to avoid me," she said.

Grantaire tipped his hat to her, smirking. "A fine evening to you, Mademoiselle." So saying, he followed the long-departed Enjolras into the night.

Eponine rounded on Gavroche, whose ear she was still clenching tightly in her thin fingers. "As for you!" she exclaimed. "I've a few more things to do here before I can leave, but don't think you're going anywhere. Sit there. Yes, right there, in the middle of the room. I want you where I can see you!" Gavroche obeyed, wearing a look that seemed somewhere between a smirk and a pout.

Really, she was too happy at seeing Gavroche again to really be angry with him, but she didn't want _him_ to know that. Her brother had been quite the little rogue from the moment he could walk, and she wished to teach him a little discipline. She just hoped she was capable of it. Their aunt was perfect for that sort of thing, quite liberal with the cane, but Eponine wasn't sure she was up to the task. Raising Azelma was one thing; she had always been a sweet and fairly pliable girl. Gavroche, though...

In just a few minutes, she had finished up the last of her tasks and, with a halfhearted wave to Roxanne, she crossed the room to where Gavroche was still sitting. "Come on, 'Vroche," she said, grabbing his hand and pulling him from his seat.

He resisted her tugging, but ultimately she was much taller and rather stronger, and managed to get him out into the street.

"Let go!" he cried. "Let go of me, I say!"

Eponine looked at him with a raised eyebrow. "For pity's sake, 'Vroche, you're not in trouble! I'm not going to scratch your eyes out!" she exclaimed in frustration. Then she tried with some effort to soften her tone. "I just don't want you getting away from me! We Thenardiers have to stick together, right?"

"I'm not a baby," he muttered sullenly. "I don't need my hand held!"

She resisted the urge to say something along the lines of "oh really?" and instead asked, "Can I trust you not to run off if I let you go?"

Gavroche put on a very innocent face. "Yes," he said.

Reluctantly, Eponine dropped his hand and let him walk beside her under his own power. He did not run off, for which she was grateful. The idea of chasing him through the streets of Paris was not a pleasant one, especially as he had already proved once tonight that he was rather faster than she. As they walked, Eponine studied him surreptitiously out of the corner of her eye. He was taller than when she had last seen him- and no surprise! It had been almost an entire year since she and Azelma had taken the coach back to Montreuil-sur-mer to visit him and _Tante_ Adilene last Christmas. He was not dressed very warmly, and his clothes had holes. Grantaire had said that he'd started tagging along to their little back-room meetings three months before. Eponine suspected that he'd been living as a gamin since at least then, maybe even longer. His face was dirty and his hair was sticking up comically at the back.

A few minutes into their walk, Gavroche began to shiver from the cold. Wordlessly, Eponine took off her little gray cap and settled it on his head.

* * *

><p>When they arrived home, Eponine discovered that Azelma had once again waited up for them.<p>

Immediately she rose from her seat at the table and flew to Gavroche's side. "'Vroche!" she exclaimed, hugging him tightly. "What in heaven's name are you doing here?"

"That's what I intend to find out," Eponine muttered.

Gavroche studied first one sister, then the other. "The pullet fares better than the hen," he commented sagely, noting Eponine's thin frame contrasted with Azelma's blooming. Both sisters chose to ignore this.

"He's been in Paris three months at least," Eponine said gravely. "You said there was a letter from Adilene... has she only just written now?"

Azelma shrugged. "It's on the table still," she said, pointing to the envelope.

Eponine fell upon the letter and almost tore the sheet of paper inside in her haste to get the envelope open. By the light of the candle, she read the contents, and her face paled as she went on. Once she had finished the missive, she looked up at Azelma, positively stunned.

"She says... she says she's written to us twice before now to tell us Gavroche was gone, and because..." She swallowed heavily. "Because we seem so wholly disinterested in our brother's well-being, she's washing her hands of him for good. And us, too. For being such ingrates, apparently." Her tone managed to be both shocked and wry.

"But we never got the letters!" Azelma protested.

Eponine sighed. "As if that does us any good," she lamented. Then she squared her shoulders resolutely. "Well, we can do without her. It's not as if we can't manage, after all. Though with another mouth to feed, I think we shall have to eat black bread for awhile." She shot a look at Gavroche. "And as for _you_! What are you doing here? What possessed you to leave Adilene?"

Gavroche shrugged. "I had a yearning to see Paris," he said. "And Adilene's a crazed old bat, anyway. Quicker with the smackings than the feedings!"

"It might not have been perfect," Azelma said, "But it was safe and you had a place to live and you were in school... now Eponine says you've been living on the streets?"

"The gutter is a fine place for a seedling in the wind," he pointed out.

"You talk like a gamin now," Eponine said, a sigh behind her words. "Haven't I raised you any better than that?"

"Ah, but you haven't been raising me, have you? Old Adilene's been raising me, the sharp-eyed crone!"

Eponine rubbed at her temples tiredly, feeling the beginnings of a headache. Gavroche was too smart in the mouth for her to deal with him at this hour, and to be perfectly honest, she rather understood his reasoning. She had never liked Adilene either, and had only relied on her for necessity, and only for as long as she absolutely had to. The moment she had been able to support herself, she had been gone, and had taken Azelma to live with her just as soon as she was able. For some time now, they had been working to build up their income enough to support Gavroche as well. His precipitous departure from Montreuil-sur-mer had only _really_ served to accelerate a process that had already been in motion.

"Fine, fine," she said. "I surrender. It was stupid of you, but good stupid. Just... no more running about like a wild thing."

Azelma took this as her cue to hug Gavroche again. "How did you even get to Paris?" she asked. "It's such a long way!"

Gavroche grinned. "There was a merchant with a cart-ful... he didn't notice a little bit of extra baggage."

Eponine wondered whether to be shocked, or to be proud of her brother's resourcefulness. It was times like this that she briefly, wistfully, thought of her mother. Eloise Thenardier had not been an admirable woman, nor had she been a good mother, and Eponine knew this, rationally. In her heart of hearts, however, she couldn't hate the woman, and wished she could ask her how on earth to manage an unruly child.

"Alright, you two," she said to her siblings. "It's late, and I at least have to be awake quite early tomorrow. 'Vroche, Azelma, you take the bed. I'll spread out a blanket in front of the stove, that's as good as anywhere."

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><p><strong>AN-** Writing Gavroche is hard. He's my favorite character, bar none, but writing Gavroche is _hard!_ Anyway, more of the history of the Thenardier siblings and their life with Adilene is going to be explored, never fear, but I prefer to do a slow reveal rather than tell all immediately.

...Reviews? Please and thank you?


	6. 5: November

**A/N-** My brain is fried. I'm not sure quite why. This chapter is filler- sort of- but it's important filler, so I guess I can't actually call it filler, now can I? Setup might be a better word, actually. So while it's a bit short, it's also full of things that are ultimately going to really influence the outcome of the story. Also, I feel I should tell you that for the rest of this fic, I'm probably going to be plugging the novel shamelessly (there are two great examples just in this chapter!), but for those of you who haven't read it, you will still totally understand the story, as it's still very much musical-based... my little references will just add an extra layer of depth for those of you who have read it (I hope).

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><p><strong>5. November<strong>

It took both Eponine and Azelma some time to get used to having Gavroche in their lives on a regular basis once more. The first day or two, they were both so delighted to have him near, and he to be with them, that it was quite easy. Eponine came home from work early so that she could, in her words, "cook something proper" for her siblings, and it was plain to both Azelma and Gavroche that she was ecstatic, if her singing and smiles were anything to go by.

After the novelty had worn off, however, life settled back into something similar to a routine. The question of sleeping arrangements also came up. Eponine insisted that the floor was plenty good enough for her, but after the first few nights, the younger two noticed that she would occasionally turn her had in the manner of one who has a sore neck, and despite her protests insisted that they take turns on the floor.

Neither Azelma nor Eponine quite knew what to do with Gavroche. Eponine wanted to enroll him in school, but she didn't have the money to pay for his books. She informed him plainly that he most certainly would be right back to school when spring came, and began working seven days a week at the cafe instead of only six. She earned two francs a day for her salary, and if she was lucky, some well-to-do patron would slip a few sous extra into the pocket of her apron. This, combined with whatever money Azelma managed to make, was just enough to support their little family. Any extra they earned was tucked safely away in the sugar bowl, and Eponine felt certain that by January she would have enough saved to buy what he needed. For the time being, she tamped down her pride and wrote a pleading letter to Adilene, explaining the confusion over her previous letters and asking for assistance for Gavroche's sake. No reply was received for the present.

Gavroche, meanwhile, was left at home by day, for lack of any better ideas as to what to do with him. This did quite nicely for time, but within a few days a his boundless energy began to assert its presence and he grew tired of remaining in the little one-room flat with nothing but Eponine's small handful of books to keep him company. Moreover, he was denied the pleasure of sitting in on the meetings of les Amis de l'ABC, at Eponine's decree. Needless to say, Gavroche was tremendously bored. Within just under two weeks, he had taken to the streets again.

Gavroche waited in the morning until Azelma had left to peddle her flowers. Then he struck out on his own to enjoy all the bustle and vigor that street-level Paris could afford him. He always returned in the evening, having taken note of what time Azelma arrived home so as not to arouse suspicion, but the days were his to do with what he pleased. He ran out many times to the streets he knew were often haunted by his newest friend, Navet, and some of the other gamins of the quarter, with whom he got along rather well.

This continued, unsuspected by either of his sisters, for all of November and in fact might have continued indefinitely had not Azelma returned early one evening and discovered him gone. When Gavroche at last arrived home, it was to discover both his sisters with arms crossed and worried frowns on their faces.

A rather heated debate ensued over just how Gavroche was to put his time to use. Azelma politely suggested that perhaps Gavroche could accompany her on her rounds each day, but Eponine flatly vetoed that idea. She pointed out that it was little better than what he was already doing, and while it was one thing for Azelma, a girl of fifteen, to be wandering around God-knows-where, Gavroche was all of nine years old and ought to be in school.

This was met with Gavroche's vehement protests. He declared that he had had plenty of schooling (after all, couldn't he read and count to one hundred and talk about Waterloo?) and that anything further that he could learn that would be of any use to him was likely to be discovered "out in the world."

Eponine, however, was adamant, and Azelma supported her. Gavroche, they said, was an intelligent young boy. He might even have the makings of a lawyer in him, if he would only apply himself, and he ought to be in school.

"A lawyer, eh?" he responded, a sly look creeping onto his face. "A great many of my friends are studying the law."

"You mean those students?" Eponine asked caustically.

Gavroche nodded. "Indeed. Monsieur Lesgle will be a great lawyer, or he would be already if he hadn't had the misfortune to be terribly late last spring and miss all his exams."

Vaguely, Eponine recalled meeting the jolly individual in question, and felt briefly guilty for thinking ill of he and his friends, before once again her distrust of the whole movement pushed the feeling from her mind. "There's no cause for you to be running about with such people," she said. "I'm sure they're good boys, such as they are, but you'll get in trouble if you keep following them around, Gavroche. I told you that!"

"And isn't the kind of ruckus they'll cause the best sort of trouble?"

"No!"

It was at this point that Gavroche proposed a compromise. He would stay inside during the day, and he would start school again in the new year, if he would be allowed to go to the meetings at the cafe at night to listen to the boys talk.

"So that's your bargain?" Eponine cried. "It's to be Republicans or gamins?"

Gavroche looked her dead in the eye and said, "Yes."

Reluctantly, Eponine allowed that associating with the Friends of the ABC was probably the lesser of the two evils, and consented to this compromise. Later, when Gavroche was snoring peacefully on the bed, she confided to Azelma that perhaps it wasn't really that bad of an idea. If they were lucky, something of the students would rub off on him and he would learn to appreciate the value of an education.

And so Gavroche resumed regular attendance of the evening meetings at the Cafe Musain.

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><p>Meanwhile, quite apart from the spark of rebellion being slowly kindled in the back room, more mundane things were taking place within the walls of the cafe. Gerard, who worked in the kitchen, was still not returning to work. It seemed that his illness was more serious than had been first thought. Roxanne grumbled continually about firing him, and complained that without his help it was impossible to run the establishment smoothly, but they managed perfectly well, and Eponine noted that although Roxanne paid a young gamine to peel potatoes and help out with other menial tasks, Gerard's position was not filled in his absence.<p>

One Saturday morning just before December, when frost covered the cobblestones and the sky was pale with those thin clouds that turn the sky grey but don't quite manage to hide the sun, a pale, waif-like girl appeared in the doorway of the cafe. She had large green eyes and mousy brown hair, and was very thin and very tired-looking. She could not have been older than seventeen.

She asked for Roxanne, and introduced herself as Louison, Gerard's next-oldest sister. The pair of them retreated to the kitchen, and Eponine, who was most certainly _not_ spying on them, saw the girl take Roxanne's rough hands in her own and press her lips to them in what appeared to be a show of gratitude. She left shortly thereafter.

That evening, as they were closing up for the night, Roxanne, who had been pensive since that morning, turned to Eponine and said, "Gerard is dead."

"What?" Eponine gasped. She had been rather fond of the burly young man; he had been sensible and good-humored.

Roxanne nodded, chewing her lip thoughtfully. "He'd been ill, of course, we knew that... I didn't think much of it. He is- he _was_- a healthy boy. But it seems it got to his lungs. He died three days ago."

Eponine pressed a hand to her heart, feeling as if she had been hit in the stomach. "That's awful," she said softly.

"It happens," Roxanne said, but her eyes were sad. "His sister came this morning to tell me the news-"

"I know, I saw her."

Roxanne gave her a sharp look for interrupting. "_As I was saying_, Louison came to tell me the news, and asked if she might have his job. I've hired her. Though God knows, I'm sure I'll regret it. She looks as if she'd fall to bits the first time she has to do a bit of hard work, puny as she is!"

Eponine smiled, knowing that Roxanne's gruff commentary was really to hide the fact that she pitied Gerard's two bereft sisters. "You're a good woman, Roxanne," she said.

"What the devil do you mean?" Roxanne snapped.

"Nothing. Nothing at all."

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><p><strong>AN-** Reviews, por favor?


	7. 6: Political Differences

**A/N-** My apologies if the "discussion" in this chapter seems a little awkward or stilted. I can write Enjolras's "voice" and I can write philosophical debates, but for some reason I can't seem to do it at the same time. I hope you'll enjoy it anyway- I did my best.

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><p><strong>6. Political Differences<strong>

It was the second of December when Gavroche was finally permitted to return to the back room at the Musain, and he arrived promptly at a quarter to seven, a wide grin gracing his little face. He fled for the back room as if he were racing to be the first one there, delight pouring off him. Eponine found herself anxiously glancing toward the hall every few minutes. God only knew what sorts of things they were pouring into his head back there...

"Oi! Thenardier! Keep your mind on your job if you'd like to keep it!" Roxanne barked in her ear. "Prettyboy over in the corner's been trying to wave you over for nearly five minutes! Bring him his wine or what-have-you and for heaven's sake, focus!"

Eponine glanced to where she pointed and was startled to see Montparnasse smirking at her from his seat in the dimmest corner at the back of the cafe. She grinned back at him, muttered an apology at Roxanne, and hurried to fill up a tumbler with whiskey, able to guess Montparnasse's first request before she had even spoken to him.

"Eponine, you look lovelier every time I see you," he told her when she approached.

She slid the glass across the table to him. "You flatterer," she replied, sarcasm oozing from his voice.

Montparnasse wrapped his hand around the glass and threw back a generous swig of the whiskey. "Would I lie to you, 'Ponine?"

"Yes."

"Ah, you know me too well."

"And yet you remain an utter mystery," Eponine teased. "You've a new coat, I see. How did you come by that?"

"Honestly, for once. Did a favor for a young bourgeois, and he was kind enough to give me a little something for my time. It's quite the tale." He looked at her with an appraising sort of look, the meaning of which Eponine tried and failed to discern. "Perhaps if you have a moment you'd care to sit with me and hear it."

Eponine glanced over her shoulder. Roxanne was nowhere in sight, none of the handful of patrons seemed particularly in need of tending to, and so she deemed it safe. She slid into the seat opposite him. "Do tell me more about it," she said.

"Well you see, the gentleman in question- a certain young M. Morel- styles himself a poet. I suppose he can afford to, being wealthy." Montparnasse's face plainly expressed, by way of sour expression, how very much he desired to be able to boast the same. "In any event, it seems there was some pretty grisette who had caught his attention, but the poor fellow, being cursed with the visage of a toad and a complexion to match, employed me as a sort of go-between. For the past three weeks I've spent my days running about delivering his poems and promising the girl all sorts of ridiculous things if only she would agree to meet him."

"How interesting. And I suppose the story ends with her falling wildly in love with you instead?" Eponine suggested, grinning.

Montparnasse chuckled. "Ah, if it were anything like that, they would be obliged to write a grand tragedy about it for the stage. But no, as it happens, that is not how it happened. It did, however, end up with my being slapped for my troubles. The poor bumbling Morel felt so badly about it that he ended up paying me rather a lot more than we had agreed upon. Hence my new coat. And isn't it lovely?"

Eponine smiled. "You always did like to be fashionable, 'Parnasse. You ought to be careful; your vanity will land you in trouble."

"Ha! Haven't we always laughed at trouble, you and I?"

"I suppose we have," she reflected.

Montparnasse was only four years her senior, and they had spent a great deal of time together as children. He had been a gamin, taking his name from his most frequent place of residence, but by way of an odd affair with a game of dice gone badly awry and one police mix-up, he had found himself in Montfermeil at around the age of eleven. Eponine had immediately befriended him, for though she loved her sister dearly, she longed for other friends and the Lark wasn't much fun (and besides, she had decided quite early in life that boys made better and more imaginative playmates than most of the girls she had known). They had been quite close for some years, even after he started running "errands" for her father- perhaps especially after that. Together they had gotten up to as much mischief as it was possible for two children to manage, and his ability to get into it and her ability to get out had combined well together.

Since the fire at the inn, they had seen very little of each other, only a handful of meetings from before Adilene had come to take them away, until he had walked into the Musain at the beginning of November. Distance had much to do with that, of course, as Montreuil-sur-mer was too far away for visiting when you were living on the streets for the most part. Speaking to him now, she recalled how much she had missed him those first few months.

"It's good to see you, Montparnasse," she said suddenly.

He looked at her dubiously and laughed his raspy laugh in surprise. "Where has that come from?" he asked.

She shrugged. "Nowhere. It's just... we've hardly seen a thing of each other since we were children."

"That's true."

"You ought to come by our flat sometime. We could all have supper," Eponine invited.

"Well..." he equivocated.

"Oh, you must! Azelma would be delighted to see you, and Gavroche, too, though I don't know that he'll remember you all that well."

"Ah, little Gavroche is with you after all?" he inquired.

Eponine's smile dropped at that, and without realizing it, she shot another look at the hallway. "Yes," she said, "And God alone knows how I will manage him. He just gets more unruly with age, it seems!"

Montparnasse smirked. "Ah, a true student of the Montparnasse school of model behavior, then?"

"Oh, perhaps I would do better to rescind my offer!" she cried in mock-horror. "I can't have him exposed to you; you'll corrupt him even further! It's bad enough he's gadding around with all these-"

"_Thenardier!_ What the devil did I tell you?"

Eponine cringed reflexively and turned to face a livid Roxanne. "Sorry, sorry!" she sputtered, leaping to her feet. "I didn't mean to... I just... he's an old friend, Roxanne, I-"

"I don't want your excuses!" Roxanne spat. "Louison's still trying to work out which end of the dishtowel is up so you're the only reliable worker I have at the moment- if I can even call you that, from the looks of things! Things may be slow 'round here tonight, but that's no excuse to be slacking around."

"Please, Madame," Montparnasse intervened. "I asked her to stay a moment and speak with me." His hazel eyes peered up at Roxanne through sultry long lashes, giving her a look that Eponine was sure would have struck a lesser woman dumb. When he'd been a boy, Montparnasse had had eyes that could get him anything he wanted, and it seemed the talent had only intensified with time. Even the steel Roxanne wasn't entirely impervious to his charm.

"Yes, well," she said in a slightly flustered tone, "Be sure that it doesn't happen again, Monsieur. I don't like people distracting my help!"

Eponine shot Montparnasse a grateful look.

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><p>Some hours later, the evening was winding down, and the majority of the cafe's customers had walked (or stumbled) out. Roxanne waved Eponine over. "Why don't you go home a little early?" she suggested. "I'd like Louison to help me close things down tonight; she needs to learn this sort of thing if she's actually going to make herself useful."<p>

Eponine felt tired and cranky, and she was grateful for the excuse to clear out. "Alright," she replied. "See you tomorrow, Roxanne."

She walked to the back room, intent on retrieving Gavroche. When she entered, only a handful of the Amis remained, most having left some time earlier. Only two remained (well, three if you counted the snoring mass that was Grantaire, intoxicated to the point of unconsciousness on a table in the corner): Enjolras and a dark-haired, bespectacled young man Eponine didn't recall seeing before. Gavroche was sitting between the pair, seemingly in his element.

"Come on, Gavroche," she called from the doorway.

He looked up at her quickly. "Eponine!" he cried cheerily, though he had that certain look in his eyes that told her he was trying to delay the inevitable. "Have you met Monsieur Combeferre yet? No, I don't suppose you have. Combeferre, old boy, meet my sister, Eponine!"

"Delighted to make your acquaintance," the man with the glasses said.

"And you as well," she said, politely but distractedly. "Come, Gavroche, we need to be getting home."

"Do I have to?" he whined.

"Yes, you have to."

The young boy crossed his arms stubbornly. "But the meeting isn't over! Thanks to you, I haven't been here in _weeks_ and I want to stay!"

At this, Enjolras straightened up and turned to look at her. His ice blue eyes really deserved the description as he fixed her with a frigid look. "Oh, so it's _your_ fault Gavroche hasn't been here?" he demanded.

"Yes," Eponine said steadily, meeting his eyes. "I have kept him away."

"You ought not have done so," Enjolras replied, rising to his feet. "Your brother is a bright boy. Undereducated, but he brings an interesting perspective to our discussions despite his youth and disadvantage. Furthermore, I find it fundamentally immoral to deprive anyone of the chance to learn, and that is exactly what he has been doing here." The newcomer called Combeferre nodded approvingly behind him.

Eponine squared back her shoulders and raised her chin defiantly. "I thank you for your concern, Monsieur, but will do for my family as I see fit."

Enjolras narrowed his eyes. "May I ask you something, Mademoiselle? Why, from the moment I met you, have you been so openly hostile toward our noble cause?"

"To be perfectly frank, Monsieur Enjolras, I don't trust you because I don't understand your reasoning!" she said hotly. "Why do you need to throw everything into a tumult all over again? It's not been six months since that ruckus in July! Haven't you just _had_ a revolution? Why do you need another one?"

"As long as tyranny sits on the throne of France, there will always be a need for revolution. Until men are free and justice is equal for all, it is the sacred duty of anyone who understands these things to work tirelessly toward this goal, in the name of Human Progress!"

Eponine glowered at him. "And what about the people who get trampled in the march toward your 'progress'? What about people killed in street riots? What about people who are barely struggling to get by as it is, let alone trying to make a living in the middle of all this political nonsense? Not everyone has the luxury of being able to afford having ideals, Monsieur!"

"Liberty is the right and responsibility of all men, Mlle. Thenardier!"

"Well then, not being a man, by your definition I think I'll exempt myself from that."

Enjolras let out a low growl of exasperation. "It would be better if you would take my point, rather than picking a fight with my diction, Mademoiselle!"

At this point, Combeferre stood up and laid a hand on Enjolras's shoulder. "Let it go, Antoine," he said quietly. Enjolras made a face, but nodded.

"Perhaps, Gavroche," he said in a very calm voice, "It would be better if you went with your sister now. You won't miss much, we're nearly done here. I'll just finish bringing François up to date on what we've been doing since he's been away."

Had Eponine been less irritated and more observant at that moment, she would have taken note of the determined attempt to be gentle to her brother, even though he was plainly annoyed with her. As it was, she just beckoned to Gavroche who, with a pronounced pout, came to her side and followed her out of the back room.

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><p>"What was that all about?" Combeferre asked a few moments later. "I haven't seen you that worked up since... well, when was the last time you spoke to your father?"<p>

"Six months ago," Enjolras replied distractedly.

Combeferre made a sympathetic face. "Not my point, but I'm sorry to hear that. What has you so wound up tonight?"

He shrugged. "Nothing in particular. That girl is just..." He let out a sigh. "I confess I've spoken very little to her, but my opinion, if you want it, is that she is the most stubborn, under-informed, over-opinionated, shrewish young woman I've ever had the misfortune to meet. I do not understand how she and her brother can possibly share blood!"

"I don't know," Combeferre said thoughtfully. "You were in the right, I would say, but she wasn't entirely in the wrong. These things are not absolute, you know."

Enjolras glowered at the tabletop. "Which, of course, only serves to make her willful blindness all the more frustrating, because if only she would open her eyes and _think_ about it for a moment, I think she would understand!"

"Why do you care so much, anyway?" the elder boy enquired. "There are many who do not support or understand our cause, Antoine. Why should one more dishwasher who dismisses us as madmen bother you so?"

For several moments, Enjolras was quiet. "I think it is because I like her brother a great deal. You know that. Gavroche is an intelligent, spirited boy, and he understands! But... he's nine years old. I don't want to drag him into our cause without the support of his family. It seems cruel."

Combeferre nodded. "Understandable. Still, you may have been a bit harsh with her. What can a girl like that possibly know of these things? Be patient, Antoine. She may yet learn to listen."

"I doubt it," Enjolras muttered.

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><p><strong>AN-** Anyway, I was browsing random works of art the other day, and I stumbled across a painting that might as well _be_ Eponine as I picture her in my head, particularly for this story. There's a link on my profile, next to the note halfway down my page regarding this story, if you want to see it. You should definitely check it out after you review.

That was a pointed hint, by the way... at this juncture, I'd like to shout out to wintmint4, the only person to review last chapter.  
>*passive-aggressive FAIL*<p> 


	8. 7: Christmas 1830, part I

**A/N-** I have the strangest writing playlists EVER. Who would have guessed that Strauss, the Clash, Vienna Teng, Maslanka, Katy Perry, Quartetto Gelato, Pink Floyd and [insert about forty other extremely eclectic bands/singers/composers here] would get along so nicely and inspire me so thoroughly? Then again, that's me all over- not quite one thing, nor quite the other. And isn't _that_ a frustrating thing, let me tell you-!

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><p><strong>Chapter 7: Christmas, 1830 part 1<strong>

Somehow December slipped away before Eponine had time to notice it had arrived, and then Christmas was nearly upon them. Paris had wrapped herself a heavy cloak of alabaster, the wind was howling around the eaves of every house, and Gavroche was in need of a new coat, his being little more than a mass of holes held together by a few threads. Strictly speaking, Eponine and Azelma needed new coats as well, but when they counted their money and realized that they only had enough left over to buy one, the pair of them determined that Gavroche needed it more badly than either of them. And so the coat was bought as a Christmas present for the young boy, and the two sisters resigned themselves to another winter of shivering.

Shivering was exactly what Eponine found herself doing a great deal of as she struggled in the direction of the Thenardiers' apartment. It was Christmas Eve, and a wretched storm had paralyzed the city. Snow had been falling almost continuously for several days, but the pace of the snowfall had picked up considerably early that morning. As the day had progressed, the temperature had risen just enough to turn the precipitation to sleet, slicking over the cobblestones and drenching the entire city in the sort of late-winter atmosphere usually reserved for late February, when the novelty of the cold weather has worn off and everyone would much rather it were springtime already.

It was now a little after four o'clock in the afternoon, and with the darkening sky the temperature was diving again, and the wind had picked up violently. The streets were nearly empty, with only the most intrepid- or the very stupid- venturing forth in this weather. Eponine wasn't sure which category she fell into.

She had scraped together the last of their money, what she had saved by not buying herself a new coat as well, and gone out well over two hours previously to buy a chicken for dinner. She might not be able to provide her siblings with a feast like she knew the bourgeois across the city would be enjoying tonight, but it was still Christmas, and she would make sure the Thenardiers would celebrate! She had not been able to afford a very large bird, but it was certainly better than the black bread they had subsisted on for the past two weeks in order to afford it.

Eponine turned her shoulder into the gusts, the only way she could make any headway, blinking repeatedly to clear her eyes of the irritated water the stinging wind was calling forth. Her hair, tumbling out from beneath her cap, was crusted with ice and her numb fingers were nearly blue. The worst of it was, she couldn't even tuck her hands into her pockets or sleeves, because she had to carry the bird. She whined wordlessly under her breath in frustration and exhaustion. A particularly strong blast of wind unsteadied her momentarily and she had to stop to catch her balance.

"I'll _never_ get home," she moaned.

She took another few steps, determined to press on despite the fact that she could no longer feel her toes inside her worn boots. Suddenly, she hit a patch of ice slicked over still further by the sleet, and her foot sailed out from under her. She flailed her arms in a desperate attempt to keep her balance, but to no avail, and suddenly she was sitting in the snow, her backside aching, her clothes soaked, and the chicken that had caused all this trouble sitting in the gutter.

It took Eponine a few moments to catch her breath, the impact with the pavement having jolted it out of her. Once she had collected herself a little and sat up on her knees, she looked around to see her precious bird, which had cost her two days' wages, lying in a muddy puddle of slush.

Eponine did not cry easily, but this sight was enough to draw a low, keening sob from her throat. She clutched her freezing fingers to her mouth and rocked back and forth a little feeling, as she sometimes did, a tremendous spurt of impotent fury at the unfair world that had forced her to take responsibility for her siblings when she was only a child herself, at the world that allowed girls like her to slip through the cracks so easily and fall down on the hard edges that were sure to break them if they weren't strong. She always told herself she was strong, but right now, she did not feel strong. She felt like she wanted to curl up right there on the pavement and let herself be buried by the snow. She was so tired... she was always so _tired_!

And then she was done. Despite the tears that still ran from her eyes only to freeze on her cheeks, she had Azelma and Gavroche waiting for her. She couldn't break down. Sniffling, she crawled on her hands and knees over to where the chicken lay in the gutter. She reached out a hand and tried to pull the bird toward her.

"Mademoiselle?" a light voice asked from right behind her.

Eponine jumped and the chicken fell back into the puddle with a splash. She rocked back on her heels and looked up at the young man who had startled her. Her eyes widened as she recognized the sweet face looking down at her. It was Jean Prouvaire.

"Monsieur Prouvaire!" she exclaimed. "Where have you come from?"

"I've told you before, call me Jehan," he said. "Are you alright?"

She nodded. "I'm not hurt, at least. What are you doing out in such awful weather?"

"I left a volume of Dante's at the cafe and ran to retrieve it before Roxanne closed up," he explained.

"And so once again we meet with me having fallen flat on my face," she sighed.

"Are you sure you are alright, Eponine?"

"Yes," she said quickly. Then she sighed. "Not really. I have lost my chicken."

"So I see," he replied, offering his hand to help her up, which Eponine took gratefully, reminded vividly of their first meeting. As he pulled her up, he saw her face clearly for the first time. "Eponine, you're crying!" he exclaimed. "You really are not alright!"

Eponine shook her head quickly. "No, it's fine. I'm fine. A little fall is not all that bad. It's just..." she looked wistfully at the bird lying in the street. "It was supposed to be our Christmas dinner. Now we shall have nothing."

Jehan thought for a moment, then shook his head decisively. "I think not, Eponine. I would not have a friend go hungry on Christmas, of all times!"

She shook her head. "No, I can't ask for your charity."

"No charity!" he protested. "My friends and I- the ones who have remained in the city for the holidays, that is- are all dining together tonight, at my home. You and your siblings must come, of course!"

Eponine debated with herself. Through a combination of Gavroche's involvement and their frequent presence at the Musain, she had seen the Amis quite often, and gotten to know some of them a little. She was fond of Jehan of course, and the lighthearted Alexandre Joly, and the others were polite to her, which was not necessarily the status quo for patrons of the cafe. Despite her misgivings regarding their politics, Gavroche had convinced her (grudgingly) that they were good boys. Spending Christmas with them was not at all an unappealing prospect.

On the other hand, she was not keen on being in close company with Antoine Enjolras. She had been purposefully avoiding him since the argument they'd had the last time Montparnasse turned up. He was, in her opinion, a very haughty and unpleasant young man, and to be perfectly honest, she was a little embarrassed at how easily he seemed to provoke her. When her duties for her job forced her into the back room with him, she avoided his eyes and if she had to speak to him for any reason, her words were terse, her tone neutral, and her sentences brief.

But being able to give her siblings full bellies and a proper Christmas outweighed her personal dislike of one member of the Amis. After all, she told herself, Enjolras might not even be there. Perhaps he had gone home to celebrate the holidays. Though frankly, he did not seem like the type to celebrate much of anything, she thought with an inward smile.

She had been silent for several long moments before she finally said, "Alright, Jehan, I accept. Just let me go and fetch Azelma and 'Vroche and we will..." A thought occurred to her, stopping her mid-sentence. "Actually, I do not know where you live!"

He smiled. "Well then, I shall accompany you! I am sure everything is just fine in Combeferre's capable hands back at my apartment- they will not miss me for another ten minutes more or less."

Eponine glanced at the chicken still lying in the gutter. "Perhaps I ought to take it home anyway," she murmured to herself. "Maybe if I cleaned it off a bit..." Then she sighed and shook her head. "Alright then, let's go."

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><p>When she arrived home with Jehan in tow, Gavroche was nothing sort of delighted, and pulled the amused student by the hand across the floor to where the younger of the Thenardier sisters sat, and introduced them with much enthusiasm and little style. Azelma blushed and looked down demurely when he kissed her hand, but regained her confidence quickly, exclaiming delightedly that she hadn't been to a proper party in years. She immediately began fussing with her hair while Eponine tried to work out what on earth to do about her sleet-soaked dress.<p>

Gavroche rolled his eyes, informed Jehan matter-of-factly that they were likely to be kept waiting for some time, and dragged him out into the hall. Eponine was grateful, as it gave her the opportunity to remove her sodden working dress and pull on the pretty green gown the sisters kept for special occasions. It was a lovely affair in emerald paduasoy silk, not quite fashionable anymore but certainly fine, which had cost far more than Eponine liked to think about, but it was shared between the sisters so she supposed that justified the cost.

This led to a small amount of pouting on the part of Azelma, who had thought of wearing it herself. However, as Eponine pointed out, she had nothing else to wear, and besides, Azelma's everyday dresses were finer by far than Eponine's (who had made a point of arranging it so, as Azelma needed to be pretty far more than Eponine did).

"Put on your pretty gloves and the bonnet with the lace and no one will know the difference," Eponine said diplomatically. She pulled on her own gloves and smiled.

Gavroche poked his head in through the door. "Are you two roses quite bloomed yet?" he cried. "It is awfully cold out in the hall, and it wouldn't be right for Monsieur Jehan to be late to his own _soirée_!"

Eponine shooed him away. "Yes, we're coming!" she said patiently. "I couldn't go out soaked to the bone, now could I?"

When the two sisters emerged from the apartment, Gavroche gave a joyful shout and sprinted down the stairs. Jehan offered Azelma his arm, and the three older people followed the exuberant boy out of the building.

As they stepped out into the street, Azelma said, "I confess, I'm very eager to meet your friends, Monsieur Prouvaire. Gavroche has always spoken very highly of the members of your, uh, society."

He smiled at her as they walked down the street. "And we think very highly of him in turn," he said. "Your brother is a remarkable boy, Mlle. Thenardier."

"That he is," Azelma replied. "We're fond of him, anyway."

Gavroche chose that moment to stoop down and begin scooping up a handful of snow in his bare fingers. Jehan and Azelma were still conversing and did not notice. Eponine, however, who was walking at the rear of the little group, saw immediately what her brother intended.

"Don't you _dare_," she warned him in a low voice.

"Oh, you're no fun," he said. "If Navet were here, we'd have a proper war!"

"Well, he is not here, only three people who would much prefer to keep their clothes dry, thank you very much!"

Gavroche pouted, and for the length of several streets, he was quiet and sullen. However, by the time they turned onto the street that Jehan announced to be his, the prospect of seeing all his revolutionary friends had restored him to high spirits and he was running circles around the group once more.

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><p><strong>AN-** Part 2 coming soon. Hopefully as early as tomorrow, if I can arrange it. Review?


	9. 8: Christmas 1830, part II

**A/N-** So, I got the Complete Symphonic Recording. Mind. Blown. So worth it. I just wanna throw it out there that Eponine's line "I could've been a student too" basically exploded my brain. I had this whole scene planned revolving around Antoine and Eponine having a conversation about education and how Eponine's secret dream was to study (inspired by book!Eponine's pride over the fact that she's literate, which honestly seems to be the only thing that actually ever made her happy), and now all of a sudden I have serious canon evidence that this could actually be a part of her character as interpreted in the musical. Needless to say, this makes me happy. (As does the fact that it looks like I'm finally going to get to see a live production again for the first time since I was just tiny!)

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><p><strong><span>Chapter 8: Christmas, 1830 part 2<span>**

"Paillard has gone back home for Christmas, and Joly wouldn't come on account of the weather," Jehan was saying as they ascended the steps to his flat. "But nearly everyone else decided to ride out the holidays in Paris rather than brave the roads that would take them home."

"In the weather we've had these last weeks, I could understand why!" Azelma replied.

Jehan opened the door and immediately they were enveloped in warm air heavily infused with the smell of delicious cooking. Gavroche scampered over the threshold immediately, followed closely by his sisters as Jehan held the door for them.

Inside, they found nearly the entire group of the Amis most dedicated members. To Eponine's displeasure, she spied Enjolras leaning against the mantel, deep in discussion with Courfeyrac. Sitting in a loose circle around the fire were Grantaire, Laigle, Bahorel, Combeferre, and the young Philippe de Arceneau. This last Eponine had only met once. He was extremely young even in this youthful company, having only just come to Paris from somewhere in the South, and she supposed he was rather handsome. A lady whom Eponine recognized as Celeste, the latest in Courfeyrac's long string of mistresses, also was sitting with this last group.

"Look who I found!" Jehan called to his friends.

"Gavroche! Sister of Gavroche!" Grantaire cried, fixing his eyes on the Thenardiers.

"Stop calling her that," Bahorel said good-naturedly, whacking his alcoholic friend about the ears. "She has a name of her own!"

"Sister of Gavroche is easier," Grantaire muttered. He got to his feet and made a low and excessively embellished bow that very nearly took him off his feet (as it was, the only thing that kept him from going right into the fire was the firm grip Bahorel had on the tails of his coat). "As always, Eponine, it is a pleasure to see you," he said, a twist of irony in his voice. He then caught sight of Azelma hesitating behind her and his bloodshot eyes widened, a grin crossing his face. "And who is this delightful creature?"

"This is my sister, Azelma-"

"Other Sister of Gavroche!" Grantaire cried delightedly, and brushed past Eponine to plant a kiss on the blushing Azelma's hand.

"-And," Eponine continued, as if he had not said a word, "You will not try any of your usual tricks on her. I have seen how you behave with the women in the cafe, Grantaire."

He looked over his shoulder at her sorrowfully, still clutching Azelma's slender fingers in his own rough ones. "Are you intent on ruining _all_ of the things that bring me joy?" he pouted.

Eponine raised an eyebrow. "It was Roxanne's idea to cut you off last week, not mine."

Grantaire huffed, and turned back to Azelma. "Other Sister of Gavroche, I pray for your sake that you are nothing like your sister."

Azelma, who was looking extremely pink about the ears, retrieved her hand from him. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Monsieur-"

"Remi Grantaire, at your service."

At this point, Gavroche took it upon himself to introduce Azelma to the rest of the company, all of whom were far more polite than the intoxicated Grantaire had been. Azelma behaved like the lady Eponine had raised her to be, she noted with pleasure. She was charming with the men and polite toward Celeste. When she was introduced to Philippe, however, she averted her eyes and her voice dropped to a barely discernible whisper. The young man, Eponine noticed, fared little better, turning scarlet as he kissed her hand and tripping over his tongue as he greeted her. It earned him amiable guffaws from his friends, and an appraising look from Eponine.

_Perhaps I should have let her wear the green dress after all_, Eponine mused.

At this moment a young woman, tidily dressed but sporting an apron, emerged from the kitchen. She was pretty, her fair hair unbound to tidily frame a heart-shaped face. "The table is ready!" she exclaimed. Then her eyes fell on the Thenardiers and a scowl crossed her face. "Or perhaps not! Why did no one tell me there were more people coming?" she asked, plainly annoyed.

Bahorel put his arms around this woman and kissed her thoroughly, which prompted some of his friends to roll their eyes. "Come now, Laura," he said once he had released her. "Don't be cross."

She was plainly far too dazed to be cross, but managed to say, "And to think I put so much effort into preparing a lovely Christmas dinner for you ungrateful louts." There did not seem to be a lot of real venom behind the statement, however, as she was still attempting to get her breath back.

"I'm sorry to be a bother," Eponine said quietly to Jehan, who still stood near her.

"I wouldn't worry," he replied. "That's just Laura all over. She always has something to be irritated about, even if she isn't really angry. It's likely why she and Christophe get along so splendidly- they are both always eager for an argument, yet never with each other!"

Eponine chuckled quietly as the company began to drift from the parlor into the dining room.

Across the room, she spied Antoine Enjolras glaring at her most intently. When she noticed this, she met his gaze squarely and steadily, quickly growing annoyed at his expression, which was as if he were offended by her very presence. This was exactly why she had felt unwilling to come in the first place! Everyone told her he was a good man, from Roxanne to Gavroche, and he probably was, but she did not like him or his haughty attitude in the slightest.

Feeling childish, she stuck out her tongue at him and turned on her heel to follow Courfeyrac and Celeste, completely ignoring his astonished expression.

* * *

><p>Dinner was a charming affair. The company was good and Laura's cooking, it transpired, was excellent. Much laughter went around the table, and the good Christmas cheer couldn't seem to be spoiled by anything. Not even, it seemed, Grantaire finally having the drink that pushed him past animation and into full-fledged boisterousness and bursting into an incredibly lewd song in the middle of dinner.<p>

Enjolras sat to Jehan's right. He did not speak much, but observed his friends quietly. He almost had not come tonight. The religious observances of the holiday were all well and good, but he rather felt that the boisterous parties so many people attended during the Christmas season were more than a little excessive, and ordinarily he would have preferred a quiet evening by himself. However, Jehan had pleaded with him so earnestly and for so long that eventually he found it impossible to refuse the younger man's request. He was glad he hadn't.

These young men he had come to know so well during his time at the Sorbonne and who had joined him in the back room at the Musain were like family to him, far more so than his actual family had been in years. It was good to spend this time with them, he thought.

He glanced down the table to where the young Thenardiers were seated, the three of them squashed between Laura on one side and Philippe on the other. Azelma was seated beside the latter, and the pair of them were sneaking glances at each other, which Enjolras found rather amusing. The younger Mlle. Thenardier seemed a sweet girl. Enjolras thought she did not seem to have any of her sister's fire. He could not decide if this was a good thing or a bad one, but in any event it certainly rendered her mostly harmless to Philippe.

Gavroche sat between his sisters, joyfully singing along with Grantaire, heedless of the rude lyrics. Eponine was trying in vain to quiet him, but he noticed that she was trying not to smile. Enjolras also felt his lips twitch up at the corners. Ever since the young boy had begun following the drunkard everywhere, Grantaire had seemed much happier than he used to. It was good for Grantaire to have a friend who appreciated his rather unique sense of humor.

Who were these Thenardiers? From the moment he had discovered that Gavroche belonged to someone and was not just another gamin like the thousands that roamed the streets of Paris, he had found himself curious about this little family group. Eponine could not be older than sixteen at the most, yet here she was, caring apparently singlehandedly for two siblings.

He was not fond of the razor-tongued young woman, but he found that he had to grudgingly concede that to be managing so well in such circumstances was impressive. Enjolras was a wealthy man, and he had never had to go hungry a day in his life, but since he had first come to Paris three years previously, he had witnessed astonishing poverty up close. He knew that Eponine could not possibly make much money. He had seen how skinny she was, as if she barely got enough to eat, the mud-stained hems of her dresses, and the holes in her threadbare coat. Her siblings, though, were warmly dressed and obviously well-fed, the beautiful Azelma in particular. For this he could not help but gain a newfound respect for Mlle. Thenardier. She might be shrewish, irritating, childish, and almost deliberately blind, but no one could deny the evidence of their eyes that she put her siblings' well-being above her own.

_It is for them that we will fight_, Enjolras thought determinedly, _for the people who work themselves to the bone just to scrape by, for all the orphans, for the ones who shiver in the cold, for all the ones whose lives are so fragile a single upset could destroy them. This is the reason for it all._

* * *

><p>After dinner, they all retreated to Jehan's well-appointed parlor, and the evening passed pleasantly, with the company sharing several bottles of wine that someone had brought along (likely Bahorel, who always had healthy stocks of such things). Outside, the wind rattled at the window pane and screamed for acknowledgement it did not receive. Once again Enjolras exempted himself from the conversation, preferring to quietly watch his friends' laughter with an almost paternal eye.<p>

The men struck up a game of cards, and Laigle lost repeatedly, to no one's surprise. The four ladies- Celeste, Laura, and the Thenardier sisters- sat close by the fire, talking and laughing together. After some minutes, a frustrated Philippe declared himself to be wretched at cards and left the circle of young men to sit next to Azelma.

"You'll be bored stiff with our conversation, I'm sure," Azelma said delicately.

Philippe shook his head vigorously. "Impossible!" he declared, and turned pink around the ears.

As the evening wore on, Grantaire became increasingly intoxicated, as was his wont. He stopped singing and started prattling incessantly, today on the subject of the worthlessness of all that was contained in a library. "What a great lot of paper they have wasted!" he proclaimed expansively. "I am not an ignorant man. I can say with certainty that in the whole of my life, I have only read one or two books that were truly worth putting down on parchment! Think of the work of all the book-binders, wasted on so many trivial scribblings!"

"If I had a library," Eponine interjected sharply, "I should not consider it useless."

Enjolras had been thinking much the same thing, and found himself rather annoyed that she had said it first.

Grantaire ignored her, and continued his ravings. This was the usual way. Enjolras, as usual, disagreed with nearly everything the skeptic said. He could not, however, help but feel a sort of affection for the man. He had cared very little for Grantaire when they had first met, but his good humor and surprisingly active mind had softened him until they became rather good friends after all.

The drunkard kept up his long-winded elucidations of his opinions, growing increasingly red in the face as he consumed more and more of Bahorel's wine.

After some twenty minutes or so, he suddenly turned to Eponine. "Why is it," he asked, pointing at Philippe "that _he_ can flirt with your sister, but I am not allowed even to pay her a compliment?"

"Because," Eponine said playfully, "Monsieur de Arceneau is a gentleman, and you are not."

She had plainly intended it in jest, but Grantaire was very drunk and did not take it as such. He sat down very sharply, a saddened expression on his face. "Oh," he said.

Enjolras winced. He knew that look. He had seen it on Grantaire's face too many times early in their acquaintance before he had come to accept the older man as a friend, and his own careless remarks had cut the man deeper than expected.

"You would do well not to say such things," Enjolras chastised her coldly.

Eponine looked at him very directly. "It was not intended cruelly," she protested.

"Regardless, I do not think you know Grantaire well enough to say such things even in jest," Enjolras replied.

"Grantaire is drunk out of his mind," Eponine said. "The odds of him even remembering this conversation are very slim."

"That's true," Grantaire said brightly, already beginning to look cheerful again now that he had heard Eponine say it was not seriously meant.

Enjolras sighed, deciding simply to give up the whole discussion rather than attempt to argue. Eponine Thenardier was impossible!

* * *

><p><strong>AN-** This chapter was a complete b*tch to write for some reason, and I'm still not particularly pleased with it but I've kicked and argued with it for quite long enough, thank you very much!

Also, if you haven't heard Michael Ball sing the titular song of Phantom of the Opera yet, _DO IT_. Just when I never thought anyone would top Ramin- oh God, insert "top ramen" joke here... I am a horrible, horrible person for saying that, but it's unfortunately where my brain instantly went... and this A/N is getting too long and way to stream-of-consciousness, so I'm gonna shut up and you're gonna review now, okay?


	10. 9: Favor and Flight

**A/N-** So... are you all very excited for Hugh Jackman? I mean, he's not Alfie Boe or anything, but he's a fantastic actor, he looks the part, and he can sing like nobody's business, so I'm definitely not complaining! I have good feelings about his 2!4!6!0!1! based on everything I've ever heard him sing, so... I feel like this is acceptable. I'm a little bit freaked out that Hayden Panettiere is under consideration for _any _role (bad memories from my days as a Heroes fan resurfacing...), but the idea of Hugh Jackman as Valjean is actually a really good one. If they _had_ to have a "famous name" for the role, they probably couldn't have done better, in my opinion.

* * *

><p><strong><span>Chapter 9: Favor and Flight<span>**

Christmas was done with in boisterous high spirits, New Years passed quietly away, and the city thawed out somewhat. Or at least, the roads cleared. The Thenardier siblings settled back into their usual routine after the bright occasion of Christmas with the Amis de l'ABC. Azelma found that her paper-flower trade was more profitable in the winter months, when living roses were not to be had, and as two weeks of January slipped away they found that they had more money coming in than before. She was, however, obliged to spend less time on the streets as the early darkness and the bitter cold drove her indoors. Still, a franc was a franc.

It was at around this time that Gavroche returned to school. Eponine had finally scraped together enough to afford it (Azelma, for her part, suspected that this had been achieved largely by not eating on her part, but she could not prove this), and to his unending regret, Gavroche was confined to the little school-room on the Rue de Vaugirard each day. He once more protested that he knew plenty enough to be getting along with, but the combined efforts of his sisters' pleading and an impassioned speech of encouragement from Combeferre convinced him, at least enough to get him into the schoolhouse.

With regards to the Amis, Eponine found herself wholly softened toward them. She neither understood nor entirely trusted their cause, but Jehan's altruism and the genuine chivalry shown by the rest of the Amis (with the possible exception of Grantaire) on behalf of her siblings had not failed to win her over. Never let it be said that Eponine Thenardier failed to recognize true friends when she had them! She did not see them much. They came and went through the cafe, but Roxanne kept her hopping and she had little time to speak to them. However, where before their encounters had been mostly formal, now they called to her in the manner of old friends and she replied with equal warmth, smiling to herself at the little glimpses of their lives she was afforded.

Gavroche still came to the cafes in the evenings, sitting in on the official meetings and informal gatherings alike. At the urging of his sisters, he brought his books along and did his schoolwork while overseeing the Amis. Eponine suspected that this probably was not helpful, as the chances of his actually finishing anything he started while immersed in such a stimulating atmosphere were slim, but she was already aware of how futile trying to keep him away would prove, so she let him be.

It was the eighteenth of January when, upon the closing of the Musain, Eponine found herself approached by Philippe de Arceneau.

"Mlle. Thenardier," he said, his face flushing scarlet, "I- that is, Courfeyrac and I, we... I mean..."

"What is it?" she asked, amused by his utterly flustered manner.

"Well, it's just, Courfeyrac suggested that perhaps you and your sister might like to join he and Celeste and myself for the evening meal tomorrow?" he said very quickly, and turning an even deeper shade of red.

Eponine remembered his attentions to her sister at Christmastime, and held back a smile upon guessing that there was more motivation behind the invitation than could be guessed from his words. "I cannot, I'm afraid. Roxanne could not part with me on the busiest evening of the week," she replied, and immediately his expression fell flat. "However, I see no reason Azelma could not join the three of you."

Philippe could not quite conceal his delight. "Are you sure I cannot entreat you to come along?" he said, though there was not as much sincerity in it as there might have been.

If Eponine came along, their party would be social, convivial and it would likely be a perfectly lovely evening. However, Eponine knew only too well that, were it just Philippe and Azelma alone with Courfeyrac and his mistress, the nature of the party would shift in tiny but rather important ways. More than anything, just at present, Eponine wanted to see her little sister happily settled with a good man. Philippe de Arceneau was wealthy, he was handsome, he seemed to be a very decent sort, and he obviously had an interest in her sister. Eponine would not meddle actively, but that would not stop her from trying to further anything that might occur in little ways.

"I must decline," she said, still trying to hide a smile, "But the four of you will surely have a delightful time."

Philippe was as pleased as could be, and trying very hard not to hide it. "We'll miss your company, I'm sure, but we're grateful for the addition of your sister to our party."

"Azelma is most excellent company, is she not?" Eponine said leadingly.

He nodded, smiling. "It is refreshing to meet such a sweet-tempered young lady, with not a whit of conceit about her."

"And how true!" Eponine said, delighted for her sister, but suddenly she felt melancholy. After a few more minutes of idle small-talk, concluding with Eponine being scolded and Philippe being chased off by Roxanne, the young man went his way and Eponine returned to the tasks of closing down the cafe with a strangely heavy heart.

She had seen the sweet smile on Philippe's face as he had spoken of Azelma's best characteristics, and it had unexpectedly provoked musings on her own shortcomings. Frequently she found herself protesting that she had done perfectly fine thus far and did not need a husband to shelter her, but to be perfectly honest, Eponine longed for love. She wanted someone to love her like Sabinus had loved the Eponine of lore. She wanted to be thought of with the same sighings that Philippe seemed prepared to dedicate to her sister. It seemed, however, extraordinarily unlikely.

Eponine was everything her sister was not. While both sisters had a certain steely strength to them, Azelma was pliable and mild-tempered. She was beautiful, easy to provoke to tears, she was sweet and demur and everything desirable in a woman or a wife- and well she should be, for Eponine had made sure that she was raised to be a good sort of girl. Eponine, though... she was not exactly the sort of woman men fantasized about. She was passably pretty, perhaps, but she knew only too well that she was far too tall and far too skinny to really be called attractive. And where her sister was amiable, Eponine was bold as brass and sharp-tongued with it. She had tried to change it, but she couldn't. When she had something to say, she _would_ say it and damn what anyone thought! A quick-witted woman was desirable, of course, but Eponine knew only too well that sometimes she was outright rude and combined with the other abrasive aspects of her personality... well, what man would want her?

It was a sorry state of affairs indeed! She shook the wistful thoughts away and reminded herself that she had no need of men or romance. She had managed for nearly five years on her own, hadn't she? There was no reason she shouldn't manage perfectly well for another thirty.

* * *

><p>The next evening, the appointed hour arrived and with it came Philippe with Courfeyrac and Celeste close in tow. It was Azelma's turn to wear the pretty green dress, which Eponine was thankful did not provoke comment. The Amis could be only too aware of the Thenardiers' poverty, but neither the two gentlemen nor Celeste were indelicate enough to mention it.<p>

With the four of them setting out for a little bistro in the vicinity of the Champs-Elysees which Courfeyrac claimed Grantaire had introduced him to, Eponine brought Gavroche, whom she had returned home for a moment to collect, back to the Musain with her.

There was no meeting of the Amis but Bahorel, Joly and Bossut were around, with Combeferre arriving shortly after Eponine returned, for once not confining themselves to the back room. That was a place for secrets and treason and confidences. Out on the floor of the commons was the place for drinking and whist, which was a rather hopeless pursuit with Bossuet present, as he never received a good hand and perpetually found himself on the losing team as a result. Not even Bahorel's usual good fortune could counteract Bossuet's lucklessness, and as a result, the cards were put away rather quickly in favor of wine.

Eponine smiled indulgently as she watched them talk and laugh. After some time, Gavroche set aside his books and joined their party, though they would not let him partake of their drink. She wondered briefly if he had actually finished his schoolwork or simply grown bored with it, but the Musain was busy and she could not spare the time to go and check with Roxanne's watchful eye on her.

The evening passed away and the lowering January twilight faded into full darkness. The casual customers drifted out to return to their homes and wives, with only the really persistent and dedicated remaining behind to plunge together into deep intoxications.

"We're nearly out of water," Roxanne said pointedly late into the evening.

Eponine immediately set off for the well, tossing a friendly nod in Louison's direction as she passed through the kitchen on her way out. Immediately she regretted not putting on her coat, as the harsh January air bit into every single exposed inch of her skin. She hunched in her shoulders and strode on. It was not far to walk- Roxanne and her husband had chosen well when selecting a location for their establishment.

She was just returning, full bucket clutched in her hands, when she heard a loud groan issuing from the mouth of a nearby alleyway. Eponine turned in the direction of the sound and saw, to her utter amazement, Montparnasse clutching his shoulder and leaning up against the wall of a millinery.

Thinking little for the water that slopped over the sides of the bucket, she ran to him. When she reached his side, she saw that there was blood on his hand.

"'Parnasse!" she exclaimed. "What's happened? What's wrong?"

He gave her a shaky smile that did not even approach his usual cocksure grin. "'M'all right," he said, sounding strained. "It's not so bad as it seems."

"What's wrong with you?"

"Nothing. Just a little cut, nothing serious. Hurts like hell, but..." He gestured to his shoulder, where she saw through his ripped coat that he was bleeding profusely.

"Oh for God's sake, come here!" she said. "Can you walk alright?"

"I'm bleeding, not dying," he replied. She took his elbow in the hand not occupied by the bucket, and guided him back to the cafe.

Eponine led him into the kitchen and sat him promptly down on a stool. She thrust the bucket into the hands of a flabbergasted Louison, trusting her to be able to work out what to do with it, and turned back to Montparnasse. Now in the lights of the kitchen she saw that not only was he bleeding from what appeared to be a knife wound, but he had a split lip and the beginnings of a black eye.

"God in heaven, 'Parnasse," she breathed. "How on earth did- here, take off your coat so I can look at that... oh, your jacket's _filthy_! What on earth have you _done_?"

"Mademoiselle Thenardier, who is this?" Louison asked plaintively. "What's going on?"

Eponine brushed her away. "He's a friend of mine," she said. "He's harmless... well, most of the time, when he's not being a pinhead! Will you get me something to clean this up?"

Louison scurried away to do as she was ordered, and Eponine gave Montparnasse a look that let him know that she was still waiting on an answer.

He shrugged. "It seems my good luck with that aristo I told you about did not hold, and I've been low on funds. I had to get creative."

Eponine sighed. "What did you do?" she asked resignedly, just as Louison was returning with a pan of warm water.

"The Patron-Minette had a job in the area, they needed an extra hand..."

Louison dropped the pan.

Eponine, for her part, had expected many things, but she had not expected that. The Patron-Minette were a notorious gang, utterly ruthless and much to be feared. She remembered, just before her parents' deaths, that her father had been initiating a partnership with one of the gang's principal members, a sly devil named Babet, and the very name was enough to send a shiver of distaste and maybe even a little fear down her spine.

"You _didn't_!" she hissed. "Oh you damned _fool_! They did this to you, then?"

"If everything had gone according to plan, it all would have been fine," he grumbled. His statement was punctuated by a wince as Eponine took a damp cloth from the quivering Louison and began to wash the blood from his wound. "Uh! Damn, 'Ponine, could you not jab me like that? Like I was saying, the job did not exactly play out as we had envisioned, and it may or may not have been due to a miscalculation on my part. In any case, Babet and his lackeys aren't too fond of me right now."

"What, uh, what exactly...?"

"It's a rather long story involving a creative escape through the sewers on my part." The smugness in his grin was tempered by the ruefulness. "Let's leave it that the Patron-Minette aren't the only ones with a bone to pick. Thanks to tonights exertions, I also seem to have some hound dog of an inspector on my tail."

Eponine actually felt herself go pale. "'Parnasse," she said cautiously, "You know I can't hide you. I can't risk my family."

"I know."

"Good."

Louison approached nervously and handed Montparnasse a glass of whiskey, which he downed with impressive speed, gasping a little at the burn of the liquor. He set the empty tumbler on the counter beside him, and turned his attention back to his explanations.

"I'm going to get out of Paris for awhile. I'll lie low in some little town or other for a few months until things blow other. Maybe work a bit, save up some to pay off the Patron-Minette." He shrugged, then seemed to regret it as his wounded shoulder gave him pain. "I'm sure Inspector Whats-His-Snuff will have more important things to do than keep looking for me after a little while."

Eponine shook her head. "You are more trouble than you're worth, 'Parnasse."

"Yes, so they tell me," he said. It perhaps ought to have been cheeky, but it was said with a solemn look. "Thank you for patching me up, 'Ponine."

"Least I could do," she responded. "I've a favor to repay, after all." She gestured to the places along her arms where little burn scars could still be seen, visible reminders of the night he had carried her out of the fire so many years ago.

This time, Montparnasse managed a smirk with some real feeling behind it. "Ah yes, you do seem to owe me your life, don't you? Perhaps I ought to think on collecting that someday."

"Heaven help us the day you decide to call in your debts!"

He chuckled. Then he got to his feet and made for the door.

"You're not leaving already!"

He turned back to her. "I've got to. I don't think anyone's traced me this far, but I can't run the risk. I'm not going to jail, 'Ponine. Not again." There was desperation in his eyes, and suddenly Eponine realized just how much living he had really done in all the years since her parents' death, the kind of toll life had taken on the friend of her childhood.

"At least take something for the road? A loaf of bread, we can spare." She gestured in Louison's direction.

Louison hesitated. "Roxanne wouldn't like it," she ventured in her soft voice.

"It can come out of my pay if she likes," Eponine said firmly.

Louison brought a loaf and handed it to Montparnasse. He gave her a brief look and a nod of thanks, then turned his gaze back to Eponine. Quickly, he strode back to her and, to her surprise, pressed a kiss to her forehead. "You're a good friend, 'Ponine," he said softly. "Take care of yourself."

"Always," she replied.

And then he stole out the door back into the night, with a steadier step than when he had arrived. Montparnasse was gone.

* * *

><p><strong>AN-** Fun fact: Montparnasse, in my head, is always played by Rupert Friend. Rupert a la _Cherie_, not _Pride & Prejudice_, though. He looks precisely what 'Parnasse ought to, IMHO.

Reviews?


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